Abstract

A Mass in five movements (omitting the Credo), suitable both for liturgical use in grand ceremonial contexts and for concert performance. Duration: 42 minutes. The work is a cappella in eight parts and seeks to recreate many of the salient the techniques and forms of English and continental sacred polyphony of the mid-to-late 16th or early 16th century; for example, there is a passage of cantus firmus in the central section of the opening Kyrie Eleison. The music aims to explore how far strict application of such techniques can still be applied in the context of an expanded harmonic vocabulary and tonal range appropriate to the 20th and 21st centuries. In the concluding Agnus Dei there is a brief reference to the motet 'Sitivit anima mea' by the Portuguese composer Manuel Cardoso (1566-1650), apt because the Mass was commissioned by the Oxford-based chamber choir Commotio in memory of Dr Anabela Bravo, a Portuguese academic who had sung within it until her death from cancer in 2010. The Agnus Dei also bears an epigraph of apt lines drawn from the poetry of Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935; these refer inter alia to the poet discerning the singing of 'an ancient Portuguese' within the unceasing rhythms of the sea. The central section of the Agnus Dei is founded upon a motif from 'Commotio', the late organ work by the Danish symphonist Carl Nielsen (1865-1931). This is intended as an homage to the eponymous choir which commissioned the music and subsequently recorded it on the Naxos label.

Item Type:

Composition

Additional Information:

This work was one of three finalist nominations for the choral section of the 2011 BASCA/BBC Composer Awards.